Weak malaise with democracy in Uruguay

Abstract

In 2015, Uruguay completed 30 years of uninterrupted democracy, a period during which elections regularly took place and the three main political parties had a turn in government in a context of total respect for liberties and political rights. This is reflected in international rankings which identify Uruguay as one of the region’s most solid democracies.1 This privileged situation is, however, not a recent or casual phenomenon but, rather, the product of an institutional and cultural process that began in the early twentieth century and has continued through to the present day with only two interruptions of democracy.